This is by far the most difficult of all the "big questions", not because it is hard to answer, but because one has to tell a suffering person what they don't want to hear. Some people are turned off the idea of believing in God altogether rather than believe that a benevelent God allows suffering.
This problem can essentially be presented as a "tri-lemma": if (1) God is omnipotent, and (2) God is good, then (3) Why do the innocent suffer?
The most common answer among the religions is to reject the idea that there are any innocent human beings. In the Eastern religions, there is the idea of Karma and reincarnation. Simply put this means that whatever we suffer in this life is the result of choices we have made, not only in our current life, but in previous lives we have lived. If we have stolen in a previous life, then someone will steal from us. We reap exactly what we sow. This is an approach so just and commonsensical that it has enjoyed enormous popularity in the West, even among Christians. (There are, however, arguments against it that I will go into elsewhere.)
The problem of suffering is at the very heart of the Buddhist message. Essentially, Buddha's great discovery (called the Four Noble Truths), was that life itself is suffering, and that we cause it ourselves through desire and craving. If we want suffering to stop, then we have to quench the desire within ourselves. The Eightfold path of Buddhism is essentially a program for doing just that. We all know, when we can look at it dispassionately, that people cause their own problems most of the time. We choose our spouses, lovers, and friends. We plan our careers and raise our children. We take risks with our health and safety. When our mistakes come back to haunt us, we tend to believe that we are victims, even though we are the ones that made the choices. Buddha essentially said that we must stop all this wanting, this desire, that cause us to make the foolish choices in the first place.
The Christian doctrine of Original Sin is another way of saying that suffering is the fault of humankind, so that there are no "innocents" to suffer. The idea is that because of Adam's fall, every human being that has come into the world since is born sinful, even an infant too young to take any action. (There are Christian sects that believe that children are automatically "saved" until they are responsible for their actions.) Because we are sinful, we are bound to suffer in this life. Some even interpret the Creation story as meaning that Adam's sin cursed the very earth itself, so even natural disasters which cause suffering are the fault of a sinful humanity. The only way out of being condemned to Hell for this inherent sinfulness is to accept the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, who essentially paid the penalty for sin. Even though this seems a very dark view of humanity, it is, in fact a very hopeful one. For one thing, the guilt for sin is somewhat less personal if it can be explained as a part of human nature rather than an individual failing. Also, the way to salvation is simple faith; one really doesn't need to do anything to improve one's self for the sake of salvation. One is supposed to gain in righteousness as a result of faith, but one is not required to be righteous in order to gain salvation. That is an extremely comforting message.
Another way of dealing with our "tri-lemma" is to say that God is not always "good" in the sense that He doesn't always do what we think is good, but rather as He sees fit. The classic text supporting this view, of course, is the Book of Job. From the whirlwind God asks "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world?" This view is echoed in the Qur'an "God knows, but you do not know." The Baha'i Writings many times repeat the verse "He doeth whatsoever He willeth, and He ordaineth that which He pleaseth." In other words, bad things happen because God wants them to happen, because they fulfill His will in the long term, in a way that we mortals are unable to see. Some would object to this view as fatalistic; for others it is a simple acknowledgement of the attributes of God. It is not the viewpoint that will grant the most comfort, but it does grant the most respect to God. And to man, since it acknowledges that there are in fact innocent people who suffer through no fault of their own, past, present, or innate.
The final option we are left with is that while God is good, He is not All-Powerful. As far as I know, this viewpoint is not promoted by any major world religion. It is, however, the viewpoint of dualistic philosophies that see Good and Evil locked into a perpetual battle. Some charismatic Christian sects are virtually dualistic inasmuch as they attribute bad events, such as illness, to the devil, and good things to God. Sometimes people who are strongly influenced by secular thinking, but unable to give up belief in God, would rather believe that God is somehow limited rather than believe He has anything to do with human suffering. It seems to me that a limited God is a contradiction in terms, but a suprising number of people are willing to accept such a view.
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